Bloom on Pynchon

[Paul Mackin]

On Aug 22, 2006, at 5:49 PM, MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> For some reason the quote was not cited in the previous post.
>
> <>
>
> You think being compared to Nathanael West is a put-down?   Miss  
> Lonelyhearts
> is brilliant.  That thing about the religious rite involving a goat  
> and an
> adding machine?


No, not at all when put that way. Anyone should be honored to be in  
that company.

But Bloom was talking of the likelihood that Pynchon might someday be  
added to the Western Canon, which for Bloom would require that he be  
seen in time as having "influenced" a  succeeding generation of  
writers. So, Bloom jocularly concludes, yes, Lot 49 does seem to have  
influenced Miss Lonelyhearts. In other words Pynchon's claim for  
canonization is that he produced a work good enough for West to build  
upon and bring to fruition--forget the fact that Lot 49 came 30 years  
later.



Anyway, that's the way  I interpreted "but the canonical potential of  
The Crying of Lot 49 depends more on our uncanny sense  that  it is  
being  imitated by Miss Lonelyhears."

p. 521 The Western Canon